We have our work cut out for us in the coming years. The threats to critical affordable and supportive housing programs that serve the poorest households and those with disabilities are real and significant. Become involved in planning the 2018 Congressional Reception!

NJCounts 2018

All twenty-one New Jersey Counties will be counting individuals and families who were homeless – both sheltered and un-sheltered - on the night of Tuesday, January 24, 2018.This annual census is conducted by networks of organizations, agencies and others that plan community efforts to end homelessness and is coordinated by Monarch Housing on the statewide level.

The goal of the second Annual Homeless Sabbath is to engage as many congregations of all faiths to include readings in their service(s) held on December 15th, 16th and 17th, 2017, at their respective house of worship. Click here to register online to participate.

Counting the homeless in Camden

This is a portion of a longer article in Friday’s Star-Ldeger. To read the full article click here.

Bill McLaughlin, a Legal Services lawyer, and Tim Bash, an engineer who is trying to start a homeless mission, walked through downtown Camden on Thursday afternoon looking.

McLaughlin spotted a tent set up in a wooded area behind the city’s police headquarters, but no one seemed to be inside.

He and Bash strolled through the waiting area at the CAMcare health clinic nearby, wondering how they would tell if any of the people there were homeless.

It turned out not to be hard: One man waiting for an appointment was wearing several layers of clothing and had a pushcart parked next to his seat. The man, who said he had mental health problems, was indeed homeless, living in an abandoned house. After he answered all McLaughlin’s questions, he said he was glad to help â€” and to be counted twice. He had already been given the survey a few hours earlier.

For others, the experience was harrowing.

Social worker William Outlaw’s group walked through a dicey area of this impoverished city, finding 56 homeless between midnight Wednesday and 5 a.m.

About a dozen of them poured out of an abandoned home being used as a crack house, he said, grateful to take up the offer of free flu shots.

Outlaw’s group also found people sleeping in the Walter Rand Transportation Center and in cars in a junkyard.

In Camden, as in 42 other spots across the state, the homeless came to the census-takers who were set up at facilities providing an array of services as part of Project Homeless Connect.

Cathedral Kitchen was providing lunch, free socks, coats and other clothes, flu shots, blood-pressure tests and information from groups that provide services to the homeless.

The people gathered there â€” mostly men â€” ranged from the newly homeless, like Cleyman Ramirez, who has been on the streets only a few months, to Calvin Fisher, who said he has been homeless for nearly 30 years.

Ramirez was hopeful when he saw some snow flurries out the window. The 23-year-old landscaper who came to the United States from Guatemala about five years ago, said he and his five roommates could no longer afford the $1,200 rent they paid to stay in a Gloucester City house because work dried up this fall. A few snow plowing jobs might be enough to get a roof over his head again, he said.

Fisher, 49, said he has suffered from schizophrenia since he was discharged from the Marines in 1977. Fisher said he’s been living under the Ben Franklin Bridge.

The government would only give him housing help if he let someone else manage his money, he said. But he won’t agree to that.

“I try to survive, try hard to survive. I’m surviving,” he said.

The results of the statewide homeless census are expected to be compiled around the end of February, said Alison Recca-Ryan, New Jersey director for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which is coordinating the New Jersey count.

“It’s just a shame how many homeless people there is in this country,” said one of the homeless, Steve Rogers, 43. He is a former chef who says he doesn’t qualify for housing assistance because of a bad credit history and a robbery conviction 13 years ago. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.